I’ve been meaning to write this post for more than a month, and I would be lying if I said this was the first free moment I’ve had since our last race. But, as you all know, the end of the school year is inevitably a crazy time, and the beginning of summer a sleepy time, and as such this is the first time that I have sat down and really put forward the effort necessary to collect my thoughts and put them all down in one place. So here it is: the (un)Official Williams Cycling Club Road (pronounced ‘Row-add’) Season Recap.
First, the numbers:
- ECCC Races attended: 3 (up from 2 last year)
- Ephs racing: 8 (10 if we include non-ECCC races and former Ephs, which allows us to count Morgan and Cruz, and they certainly should count).
- Ephs racing for the first time…ever: 4
- 1st Place Finishes: 7
- Top 10’s: More than 25 Top 10 finishes (my best count was around 28)
- Crashes/mechanicals: a lot
Rankings (nobody cares about these):
- ECCC Overall Ranking: 3oth out of 53 schools (16th in Div II)
- Women’s C: Amy was 4th overall and 1st in Div II
- Men’s C: Erik tied for 3rd overall and tied for 1st in Div II
- Men’s D: I (John) was 9th overall and 4th in Div II
The above rankings are the offical ECCC rankings for the entire season. If you look at the rankings after the Dartmouth/UNH weekend, effectively the end of our season, we’re 26th overall (15th in Div II), and both Amy and I are ranked higher in our respective categories.
Now that I’m done tooting my own horn, let me highlight some important things about these results. Everyone who attended more than one race (that’s Amy, Erik, Henry, Ian, Todd, and me for those of you keeping score at home) contributed points to our overall ranking. And we only attended three race weekends. Even though we weren’t at every race, we consistently performed well across the board at the races we attended. We ranked higher than schools like NYU, Boston College (the alma mater of the aero-potato if I’m not mistaken), and Rutgers, all schools with more people on their teams in all categories. Not half bad for a school of 2000 nerds with only 8 people on its cycling team.
But all those numbers and rankings, that’s all boring stuff. What we really should care about is all the other stuff, the stuff that can’t be quantified or ranked, the stuff that makes cycling a club sport, not some lame, overly serious varsity “athletic program”, right?
Superlatives:
- Most likely to wear ridiculous glasses: Henry
- Most likely to sport an epic ‘Race Face’ (also known as ‘Thug Mug’): Ian, at Yale (evidence)
- Most likely to wave at onlookers during a race whilst dominating the competition: Amy
- Most likely to sport unfortunate facial hair and pant heavily (that sounds worse than I meant it to): Erik
- Most likely to take sweet photos and/or vomit during a race (but not at the same time): Todd
- Most likely to not find “Men’s D, why not Men’s A++?” funny: John
- Most likely to win a midnight crit after a raucous cookout and party (purely hypothetically, of course): Morgan
- Most likely to fight the law, and have the law win: JJ
I would say, given the above outlined information, that we had a successful season. Thanks to all y’all for super fun races, all the fun times in the ark, and everything else that made this spring awesome.
p.s. if any of my numbers are wrong, or you disagree with my superlative assignments, or you can come up with even better ones, let me know.
